Boxes of Books
Ye gods!
A friend-of-a-friend is moving out of town, and decided that he didn’t feel like moving about half his books, so he decided to donate them to the library booksale. My friend intervened, and claimed the books for me – they’re almost exclusively fantasy books, which he knows I like, and the idea was that I could keep what I wanted, list on BookMooch what I wanted, and drive the rest to the library myself.
And, like any red-blooded bibliophile, I can’t resist boxes upon boxes of free books! Resolutions be damned! I actually was pretty good, only pulling ten books out of the pile as keepers:
Karen Miller’s Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series, which I’ve heard is quite good: The Innocent Mage and The Awakened Mage.
The first two books of Emily Drake’s Magickers series: The Magickers and The Curse of Arkady, which claim to be “America’s answer to Harry Potter“. I’ve heard that claim a lot… we’ll see if it pans out this time.
Trudi Canavan’s Age of the Five Trilogy: Priestess of the White, Last of the Wilds, and Voice of the Gods. Don’t know much about this one, other than I’ve heard Canavan’s name before.
The first two books of Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman’s Crossing and Forest Mage. I’ve never read any of Hobb’s books, and Chainletters reviewed these books favorably not too long ago, so I nabbed them from the to-be-mooched pile.
Heir of Autumn by Giles Carwyn and Todd Fahnestock. Never heard of either of the authors, never heard of the book, but the cover made it look interesting, plus I don’t think it’s part of a series, so I picked it up and will give it a shot.
That left about 70 books in the boxes; almost all Forgotten Realms D&D/RPG-type-stuff. I’ve never been an RPG-er, so I cheerfully started listing all of them on BookMooch (pausing halfway through to order a CueCat, heh). I was SHOCKED at the popularity of these books… 25 were gone within two hours of listing them, and at the moment I’ve got 40+ books to send out. That’s a big trip to the post office. Luckily the guys at my local P.O. branch know me and like me, although we’ll see if that last bit stays true after I dump a giant armful of media-mail and international parcels all over their desk.
But, not to be complaining. I now have a scary, scary surplus of points… which, even if I give a bunch to charity, is still going to wind up being very, very bad for my TBR pile. Ah well. :)
On a totally unrelated-to-books note….
I finished my blanket! I love this blanket more than a person should love five-odd pounds of yarn.
It’s wider than it is long and it’s soft and warm and snuggly and more involved than anything else I’ve made yet, although it didn’t take all that long, considering – only maybe four months of semi-infrequent work. The weaving in of ends took longer than anything else, unsurprisingly.
Oh, I got the pattern from Better Homes & Gardens Afghans to Knit and Crochet.
See, I always get back around to books eventually.
Fyrefly's Book Blog 
Gorgeous blanket! I need to get back to knitting, I haven’t done anything since a baby blanket this spring.
Thanks! My next project is actually a baby blanket for a high school friend who’s due to pop sometime soon… I’ve got nice, snuggly yarn in minty green and what I’ve taken to calling “clown-vomit multi”, should make for some nice, gender-neutral stripes.
Plus the pattern’s dead simple, so I can do it while watching DVDs and still pay almost full attention.
A bunch of free books and finishing a beautiful knitting project? As a fellow fantasy reader and knitter, I’ve gotta say that it doesn’t get much better than that! :)
You are a lucky dog! I haven’t really read fantasy myself, but boxes upon boxes of books to explore? I’d die for the chance. It would be a delight even if there was only one book in the whole bunch I wanted. The gods are with you, my friend!
Your blanket is beautiful and I thought it was a quilt until I saw the second picture. I used to cross stitch before my kids were born and this makes me long for those days a little bit. If I picked that up again, I’d have to listen only to audio books. It would take up too much of my time. :)
Laura – No kidding! It’s probably a good thing that the boxes were 90% RPG stuff, though, or I would have had to buy another bookcase!
LH – This was my first time with the boxes of mystery books, and the first layer I pulled off was all RPG stuff, so I was starting to get a little blasé about it, and then I spied a cover that I recognized from chainletters’s blog, and quickly got excited again.
I do knit with audiobooks on occasionally (my very first blanket was made while listening to The Thirteenth Tale) but I do most of my knitting while watching TV or DVDs… I don’t feel quite so guilty about not spending the time reading if I’m doing two other things instead. I don’t know if it would work for cross-stitch as well, though – I certainly needed to concentrate on the pattern and the piece when I used to cross-stitch, whereas I can do simple knitting without looking.
Also, LH, if you’re interested in getting into fantasy, I am always willing to make recommendations… Guy Gavriel Kay is much more like historical fiction than fantasy, only with occasional bits of magic thrown in, plus I think he’s a phenomenally good writer. I think you’d probably also like Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series, particularly Paladin of Souls. Nothing overly elves and dragons-ish, but just a very well-told and unique story… with some magic to it.
Fyrefly,
Every time I click my way into here I have to open another tab for my library account. That’s two more books added to the 6 other ‘holds’ I’ve got :)
Congrats on the blanket. Love the escalating pattern. A few of my friends are into knitting, but I don’t think any of them have gone as big as a five-pounder.
chainletters – Which two? I’m a bad influence, I know. Rest assured that your blog is just as dangerous for my wishlist! :)
I like doing blankets because a) I don’t have to worry about getting the sizing right, and b) they keep me busy for a long time, so I’m not left with six hundred scarves that I then have to pawn off on friends, acquaintances, and strangers. The pattern is (as Literate Housewife thought) based on the Flying Geese quilt pattern – I loved the triangles the first time I flipped through the book.
In my cross-stitching heyday, I did it everywhere, but must often in front of the TV. I was able to do both and it drove my husband crazy. :) He didn’t think I was concentrating enough when I did that while watching a movie. I got what I wanted out of it. :)
Innocent Mage and The Magickers, though I would say the first sounds far more appealing.